Book that was written entirely without the letter 'e' is leaving people mind-blown
An entire book was written without using the most common letter of the alphabet, and people have been branding it 'crazy' after picking up on one specific detail.
It seems like a bizarre thing to do, but the 300-page French novel went the whole way through without using the letter through what is known as lipogrammatic style of writing, which some writers do to challenge themselves.
This essentially means that the writer has purposely chosen to constrain themselves by not allowing the use of a particular letter, with the word 'lipogram' originating from an Ancient Greek word that means 'leaving out a letter'.
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The book was originally written in French in 1969 by George Perec and titled La Disparition where he avoided using the vowel 'e' in its entirety.
It was then translated fully into English (somehow) by Gilbert Adair, again avoiding the letter 'e' with the title A Void, which won him the Scott Moncrieff Prize in 1995.
It's a truly crazy story that has left people on social media scratching their heads, with one user taking to Reddit to vent about the book, who had attempted to tackle it during uni.
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The user wrote in the DamnThatsInteresting subreddit: "This is a translation from the book La Disparition, in French. I tried to read it while I was in college, but somehow, it was difficult and so gave up."
They posted the caption alongside a snap of a page in the novel.
Bookworms in the comments firstly pointed out that the book wasn't La Disparition, it was a different novel called Gadsby, another piece written without the letter 'e' in 1939.
Yes, there's more than one and they're apparently fairly well-known in the book community - I can't believe it either.
One user pointed out: "You can't use the word 'the' one single time, that seems so absurdly challenging."
A second said: "Make your jokes about the author's name having three e's in it, but make no mistake...
"This 1939 book genuinely contains 50,000 words of story text, none of which contain the letter 'e'."
Another user posted: "A translation is so crazy to me. Like I actually can’t comprehend how you could convey the same meaning while sticking to the restraint."
On the other hand, some users criticised how difficult the book was to read, with one saying: "Horrific to read. Sounds like it was written by someone pretending to be human"
A fifth commented: "It was genuinely irritating to read the word 'so' that many times on one page."
A different user added: "I don't like this. Interesting? Yes. Uncomfortable? Also yes."
Topics: Books, Reddit, Social Media
Joshua Nair